A Storm in a Teacup “ I can’t wait until the cows come home ”, thundered Vinay Bhatia, Director of Projects in Apex Consulting Services (ACS). It was during the first quarter project status review meeting at the ACS headquarters in Mumbai. At the receiving end was a naïve Gopal Subbaiyan, the Graduate Trainee from the Project Management department. He wondered what cows have to do with project slippages. Mr. Bhatia threw the project status report back to Gopal and said, “Better to bounce this off to Ajay to iron out the kinks before showing it to me tomorrow” and then dialed Ajay, “Ajay, there is something falling between the cracks in this report from this new kid on the block . Want you to do the fine combing . This greenhorn needs some sharpening”. Gopal’s bewilderment hit the roof, as the terms ‘greenhorn’, ‘bouncing off’, ‘ironing the kinks’, ‘fine combing', etc were out of his language radar. Although these are proper words, Gopal could feel that they had different mean...